“Could I buy it?”
“Yes, you could buy it of the state, and then you would get a deed of it; but if you should go on there, clear a spot, plant it, and keep hold of it, nobody would ever consarn with you, and after a while you would hold it by possession.”
“Is there any name to it?”
“Not as ever I knew.”
“How do you distinguish it?”
“Some call it Birch Island, and some Indian Island, because the Indians used to make canoes there.”
Charlie told him about the bear.
“Shall I get Fred, and you go with us, and kill her?”
“No, Charlie; she’s nursing her cubs, and is poor now; let her alone till my corn is in the milk; she’ll be getting into that; be fat then, and the cubs worth something, and we will get the whole of them. I’ll keep track of her. How do your partridges come on?”
“First rate; before they hatched I cut away the bushes, and built a tight fence around the hen, and when I go there, they run right under her.”